


Bread Does Not Nourish Me

by isaac richard (isaacrichard)



Category: God's Own Country, God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: Canon compliant for the most part, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isaacrichard/pseuds/isaac%20richard
Summary: All Gheorghe wants to do is hold Johnny close and never let him go.





	Bread Does Not Nourish Me

**Author's Note:**

> this movie destroyed me, i knew i had to write something for it. this is basically me imagining if all those touching scenes had been drawn out into one moment <3
> 
> titled from neruda's eleventh sonnet

Gheorghe always had an aptitude for fixing broken things, from the time he was a boy. His mother called him _the mender_ and _the rehabilitator_ in her prim English, words that he duly repeated with pride, though they felt fat and foreign on his tongue. Later he would realize that his mother’s big words were the reason his English was so often complimented – compliments sometimes spliced with envy, especially if they were a native English speaker themselves – and he would smile at his mother’s genius.

By the time Gheorghe lays eyes on Johnny, he’s had enough experience with broken things to tell Johnny is close to counting himself among them. Just the way he presses the far half of his body farther against the car’s door, like a wounded animal trying to hide its injury, is telltale. He lights up a cigarette while driving and keeps giving Gheorghe strange, sidelong glances as if he expects him to shout suddenly or take a tumble out of the vehicle.

While showing him the caravan, Johnny quickly loses his temper when the door won’t shut properly, and Gheorghe, in his own level-headedness, can’t quite understand it. He settles into bed with the memory of an ailed cat he had once nursed back to health, a tabby with matted fur and a clipped ear. The tabby had hissed and wailed and threw all sorts of fits until it began to heal, though Gheorghe still has no idea where it got the energy to do such things. He chalks Johnny’s outburst to something like that – a hurt creature lashing out.

He wonders what has happened in Johnny’s life to make him so prickly. He wonders if he’ll ever get the chance to find out.

Even if he doesn’t, the consequences of whatever happened lay themselves in front of Gheorghe in a matter of hours. He hears the crunch of packed dirt being moved by wheels and opens the curtains to the caravan’s little window, to find a befuddled looking taxi-cabbie hauling an unconscious Johnny out, laying him less than gently on the ground. The man is completely lifeless besides the rise and fall of his chest.

From his vantage point, Gheorghe balks. He had never thought… Though why shouldn’t he have? If you can smoke like a chimney you can drink like a fish, after all.

Gheorghe knows how to mind his own business, however. He aches to reach out, for reasons he can’t quite explain, but he doesn’t; not even when Johnny comes in late and gets chewed out by his father. Johnny hangs his head like a little boy, his large ears stained red with anger or embarrassment.

But Gheorghe can see the apology as it tumbles from Johnny’s lips and he can see his father absorb it with a curt nod, he can see the respect that flows from one man to the other. Gheorghe somehow didn’t expect this, this esteem in their relationship. He had only just met the family, but they way they showed themselves – a mum and a dad with a low-life son – was obviously not the case. A nan and a da with a son who tried very hard but sometimes slipped and fell was to be revealed, Gheorghe only had to look a little past his own notions.

“Stinks of piss,” Johnny said in his rude way, something Gheorghe thought he’d never get used to. Everything about Johnny was rude, from the way he would brush past you, like you weren’t worth the effort of an ‘excuse me’ to the way he spoke – fuck this and fuck that and all. Gheorghe was raised on a farm, same as Johnny, but he never heard such swearing until he moved away from Romania. Perhaps it was a dialect thing? He didn’t know, really, other than he didn’t care for it.

The shambling stone building they’d be sleeping in while they mended the wall and looked after the sheep _did_ stink of piss, though. Gheorghe loiters for a moment, thinking, and Johnny sticks his head back in.

“Doing any work today, gypsy?”

That was another thing. Gheorghe liked to think he was slow to anger, but he guarded his heritage very close to his heart. Johnny calling him slurs was different than him being withdrawn or rude – and it was infuriating.

Gheorghe acted without thinking, running up behind Johnny and taking him down. Though Johnny was strong from years of labor, he was skinny, and Gheorghe was able to overpower him within minutes of the scuffle. He held Johnny in such a way that he had to stop squirming to be able to breathe. He looked Johnny directly in his obviously startled eyes and threatened him. He would not be called gypsy again.

Gheorghe spits in Johnny’s hand when he cuts himself doing work. His maternal instincts are going wild, clawing him up inside to help the poor fellow, now physically wounded as well as whatever was going on inside of him. He’s tried to fight it, tried to ignore that he had caught the same longing that he would get whenever he saw a limping foal or baby bird fallen from its nest. He wanted to set Johnny right.

There was a reason Johnny was the way he was, Gheorghe could tell. It would be so different if the man was mean, but he wasn’t – he was rude and angry, but he wasn’t mean. Mean people become that way by choice, Johnny had not let himself get mean, but he suffered from sickness in his heart. Gheorghe wanted so badly to be able to be _the mender_ again, to cure what ailed Johnny. It seemed more important than earning his wages from the Saxbys. It seemed like _that_ was why he was the only one to apply for the ad.

Fate, or sommat, as Johnny might quip, if he had known the thoughts running around Gheorghe’s head.

“It will sting, that’s all,” Gheorghe says, massaging his spit into Johnny’s palm. He longs to soothe, to cradle Johnny in his arms and tell him everything will be alright, but they’re not there yet.

Later, Johnny is the one to pounce on him mid-piss, and they roll to the ground with Gheorghe’s pants around his ankles. They struggle, Johnny seemingly needing this more than Gheorghe had thought, because there’s not a whole lot of fight in him. He wants this. Gheorghe rakes off his shirt and presses their bodies together. He’s nearly glad it’s happened this way because, _Jesus Christ_ is it good to be able to touch Johnny. He had been there, just out of reach for days, annoying and intrusive like a squeaky door someone had forbade Gheorghe from oiling.

It’s rough and it’s messy and it’s really, really good. Johnny goes down on him without hesitation and his motions are fluid; he’s done this many times before. Gheorghe goes slack with his orgasm and Johnny swallows him down, doesn’t ask Gheorghe to return the favor.

An apology, perhaps? Gheorghe was an apt learner, and it was blatant Johnny didn’t use his words in ways other than to brutalize or get a quick point across. He would take what he could in the ways of “I’m sorry”, even if it didn’t get verbalized.

They’re sitting around the fire, cup noodles planted firmly in hands, when Gheorghe realizes he’s falling in love. He mentally kicks himself for it, of course – what could be worse than falling for the son of the family who pays your wages, minimal as they may be? Not that Gheorghe thought he himself was a prize to behold, but Johnny wasn’t a shining example of everything Gheorghe had once thought he wanted.

Then again, he had once thought he wanted a woman in his company. That had proved false, so why shouldn’t his idea of a suitable partner once again be turned on its head?

“Wha’s eatin’ you?” Johnny garbles over his food. Gheorghe looks at him slowly. Johnny wasn’t supposed to ask how he was doing, it was long since established that he was withdrawn, quiet creature.

“Ya look somewheres else,” he says, swallowing. Gheorghe spares a long peek at those pink, soft-looking lips.

“Only thinking,” Gheorghe says.

A silence settles over them for a moment, the fire crackling, the sounds of the sheep shuffling in the near distance loud in their ears. Gheorghe wonders how he got here, yearning to cradle the wounded man next to him, though he knows that things just happen the way they do for no more reason than _because._ It doesn’t stop the questions from swarming in his head, though – he had always been that way, more up in his head than anywhere.

“Yeah, well,” Johnny says after a beat. His face flickers in the firelight. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?” Gheorghe says, a bit amused. Don’t think? How could he, of all people, be expected to quell the thoughts that ran like a river?

Johnny grunts in agreement. Whatever had momentarily possessed him is gone, and Gheorghe finds himself hoping it returns soon.

They will have to return to the Saxbys’ soon, and it fills Gheorghe with a peculiar sort of dread. Reading situations was a talent of his, and he can tell if he doesn’t break stride with Johnny before they leave, it will never happen.

They’ve lived in a strange tandem for the past few days, Johnny throwing Gheorghe a smile when he did something that pleased him, like saving the lamb from starvation, and Gheorghe returned the favor by trying to get Johnny to open up, showing him the landscape, letting him vent about his long-gone mother.

They had sex, another surprise. But Johnny still refused to be held, to be comforted in ways other than distanced company. Gheorghe coveted the sensation of Johnny in his arms, he dreamed of it. He needed it, the feelings in his heart and his head wouldn’t let him have it any other way.

In the night, when all is calm, Gheorghe decides he’s had enough of the waiting.

He sits up slowly, watching Johnny shift and lean up to watch him. His eyes are full of questions, and Gheorghe intends to answer. He feels the way he does when pulling out antiseptic for the sheep, watched by similarly curious eyes.

Gheorghe reaches for Johnny, unsurprised when he pulls away. But Gheorghe is ready for it, doesn’t let Johnny get away that easily. They both need this, that much is clear, and if they are ever going to have a relationship beyond strange acquaintances that sometimes fuck, something has to change. He captures Johnny’s wrist.

Johnny doesn’t fight, doesn’t squirm, just looks at Gheorghe with wide eyes, completely confused and startled. Gheorghe softens, he almost drops Johnny’s hand. Fighting his instincts instead, he holds Johnny’s hand to his chest, letting him feel the nervous, yet steady beat of his heart.

The change in Johnny is instant. He goes from startled and bucking to calm, almost dream-like, in a matter of seconds. Gheorghe takes the opportunity to move in and lay claim to what he supposes might be his now, he encircles Johnny with strong, protective arms.

Johnny lets out a choked noise, surprised, but doesn’t try to fight off Gheorghe. He, in fact, burrows into Gheorghe’s sweater, turning so if he sat up straight, they would be face to face. Johnny’s arms come to rest around Gheorghe’s middle, and the silence is thick and comfortable.

Johnny shudders. They hold each other for a long time, Gheorghe feeling fulfilled the way he did when an animal they thought had died comes back to life under his hand. His lamb – Johnny – had spluttered and breathed again.

Whatever happens next, Gheorghe thinks, he can do with Johnny in his arms.


End file.
